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FACTORS TO CONSIDER BEFORE STARTING A POULTRY FARM

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The following factors are to be considered before starting a poultry farm:

1. Housing system
This is a very important factor you need to put into consideration, no matter the number of birds you are keeping the housing can make or destroy your success in poultry farming.

If you have successfully worked on the housing system more than 40% of problems have been solved. I have met some farmers who have poorly constructed houses. Some poultry diseases are as a result of poor housing. Ensure that you source for the services of a good poultry house mason. Note that housing is the second most expensive of the poultry venture after feeds.

2. Feed and feeding
You need to map out a feasibility studies on poultry farming before you kick-start anything this will go a long way to help you achieve your goals and succeed, feeds and feeding carries larger part of the expenses in a poultry farm and adequate plan towards feeding can help make the journey easier. You can choose either to produce your own feeds yourself or buy various stages feeds from feed mills. Proper feeding makes the birds grow well and to a larger extend their health is secured. Making your own feeds can cut the cost of production by 50%. New farmers should not make their own feeds until they break-even. Remember feed making increases the cost of raw materials as you will have to buy machineries like feed grinder/hammer mill and feed mixer which are very expensive. Farmers with over 500 birds can make their own feeds as this will prove economical.

3. Record keeping
This is another very important factor in poultry system management. A proper record keeping can foster your poultry business development, record keeping will help you determine your success and failures, flaws and where amendment is needed, keep a proper record for your poultry farm in order to increase your production level always. Some farmers don’t even know how many birds they have or the mortality level in their flock. I have been to some farms where a farmer requests me to count the birds for him/her during vaccination or debeaking because of poor records.

4. Changes and differences
You need to be sensitive to changes and differences in your poultry farm,
which includes the growth, feeding, their droppings, the laying capacities, number of birds, sound amongst others.

This will help you as a farmer to be sensitive to changes in the system. For instances: when layers are about to start laying, they makes a lot of noise, feeding rate and body weight increases, and sometimes when there is disease outbreak you can quickly take note of this happenings by their droppings, if it changes from what it use to be when they are healthy then something is wrong, you can call on your vet doctor for inspection. Be sensitive to regular changes in your poultry farm always.

5. Types of birds
This is another important factor you should consider in a poultry farming business what are the types of birds you want to raise? Chicken? (Layers or Broilers as applicable to other birds) Turkey? Goose? Duck? You should source for quality chicks from breeders. First generation chicks are the best. Only source chicks from reputable breeders.

6. Areas of concentration
This is a very important factor to consider in a poultry farming business. Do you want to keep them for: Egg production, meat production, breeding (hatching of
eggs into chicks), feed processing and production, packaging of poultry products, marketing and lots more?

7. Capital
Capital is one of the major factor that determine what happens and what goes on in the system. Capital is the fund (total amount of money you are investing into a business) the main reason why poultry needs enough fund is that you can’t be managing poultry birds you have to provide the best for them in order for you to get the required products at the end of your production.

8. Poultry Equipments and facilities

It is very important to get adequate equipment ready and set before starting a poultry farm so that you don’t get stocked on the way. Some of the necessary equipments includes:

-Feeders
-Drinkers
-Egg trays
-Heat source
-Waste disposal
-Incubator
-Culling cage/ Sick bay (for keeping sick birds)
-Clean water
-Feeds and so on.

9. Poultry location
Should be in a place the smell can not affect people living around them and disposal of waste is easy, actually you can run a poultry farm at home as well in your backyard but in a situation where you are considering thousands of birds, try and locate the house in an environment with less population of people and settlement so that you can run your business without any interference and disturbance.

When all the above factors are looked into then farmers will be successful at farming. We will no longer take poultry farming as a hobby but as a serious venture just as real estate and other serious business.

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Poultry Farming

How to manage your poultry farm during the rainy season

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Poultry farmers are always keen to maintain their productivity levels during the rainy seasons.

A poultry farmer generally faces immense challenges from all quarters known and unknown. Even the chickens must adapt to the changing seasons to survive.

Farmers generally see a drop in egg production, rampant diseases, high cost of production, low utilisation of feed.

Here are some tips for how one can take care of the farm during rainy season.

1. Change in the feeding habit

As cool weather sets in, chickens tend to change their feeding habits as they perform fewer activities and huddle together to generate heat within their bodies to keep themselves warm. It is essential to provide chicken with high energy poultry feed. To ensure its energy requirement are met for chicken tend to eat more feed during the rainy seasons to perform its basic metabolic activities.

2. Prevalence of Diseases

During rainy season, there is the transmission of pathogens. Common diseases include respiratory distress, stained or coloured waste, diarrhoea, nervousness, loss of appetite, ruffled feathers, enlarged prostrate and swollen face. As a farmer, always keep the shed dry, do not serve caked feed, and provide antibiotics to boost their immune system.

3. Mud-Balls on chicken feet

Mud balls on a chicken feet is a common disease found during rainy seasons. When a chicken walks on wet floors they scratch the feet allowing the soil and manure to stick to the chicken’s claws. If the amount of mud tends to grow bigger, it can affect the walking posture of the chicken leading to broken toes. As a solution, the poultry floor must be kept clean and dry with sufficient bedding materials. Regular cleaning of dropping and changing bedding materials can diminish the spread of diseases.

4. Chicken Moulting

Chickens shed their old feathers for new ones to grow. The phenomenon usually takes place during shorter days and cooler temperatures. However, laying chicken stop laying during moulting and utilizes this period to build a nutrient reserve. It is necessary to provide the chickens with a high-quality diet even though they are not laying.

In Conclusion

Poultry farmers must follow adequate hygienic measures to curb the outbreak of any harmful poultry disease. The farmers need to understand the dynamics of poultry in the rainy season to maintain a higher yield.

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Eggs

Danger of Eating Raw Egg

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People sometimes use raw eggs when making homemade ice cream, mayonnaise, Caesar salad dressing, hollandaise sauce, eggnog and meringues. However, it is not save to eat raw or undercooked eggs.

Raw eggs have very comparable health benefits to cooked eggs. They share mostly the same nutritional profile, same vitamins, same health perks, etc. However, raw eggs come with some unique risks that generally make them unsafe to eat:

  1. Risk of Disease

That’s right. Raw eggs come with the risk of salmonella, a bacteria that can infect your digestive tract. Eggs can get contaminated by salmonella either because the hen that laid the egg was infected with the bacteria, or because the egg was laid in a dirty environment already containing salmonella. But cooking it to a temperature of at least 160 degrees F (which happens through most cooking methods) will kill any lingering bacteria, which is why cooked eggs are safe and raw ones typically are not.

Contracting salmonella isn’t usually life-threatening, but it’s a serious condition that could cause diarrhea and sometimes requires hospitalization in more severe cases. (And if you’ve ever had salmonella, you know it’s absolutely miserable.)

While the odds of contracting salmonella from raw eggs is pretty low (about one in 20,000 eggs is believed to be infected), the USDA stresses that no one should eat foods made with raw eggs—especially pregnant women, infants, and anyone with a compromised immune system.

The exception: If you’re preparing a food that’s traditionally made with raw eggs (like eggnog), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends using pasteurized eggs, which have been treated to kill most bacteria in the egg.

Also Read Common ways to manage bacteria diseases in poultry

  1. It could make you deficient in biotin

Consuming raw eggs has also been linked to biotin deficiencies. Biotin is a type of B vitamin and can bring major beauty benefits, including healthier hair and nails. Raw egg whites contain a protein called avidin, which binds to biotin and thus block absorption. (Cooked egg whites do not have avidin.) However, you’d have to eat a LOT of egg whites every day in order to become deficient, so that’s more of a secondary concern to the salmonella risk.

The benefits of fully-cooked eggs

Don’t eat raw eggs or foods that contain raw eggs, unless you’re willing to risk salmonella. Thankfully, eggs are safe (and super healthy!) when fully cooked. In fact, cooked eggs have a lot of health benefits:

  1. They’re full of healthy fats

You don’t have to be a ketogenic diet follower to know that eggs—raw or cooked—are a fantastic source of healthy fats, which help you stay full and satisfied for longer. They even naturally contain a small amount of omega-3 fatty acids (you know, the stuff that’s good for your brain and heart health), with fortified eggs containing even more of the nutrient.

  1. They’re high in protein

Raw eggs have six grams of protein, just like in a boiled egg. Not only is protein a key energy source, but it will help you feel full longer, too. However, keep in mind that a small study found that the protein in raw eggs is less bioavailable (aka less easily absorbed) by the body than the protein in cooked eggs.

Also Read Best Ways to Avoid Mortality in Brooding

  1. The yolks are packed in vitamins A, B, D, E, and K

Egg yolks are very concentrated in nutrients—both when cooked and uncooked. It’s got calcium for strong bones, iron for healthy blood flow, and a variety of vitamins to support your cardiovascular, nervous, and immune systems. And these nutrients don’t exist outside the yolk (so, don’t just eat the whites).

  1. They help protect against heart disease

Eggs—whether eaten raw or cooked—are good for your heart thanks to their phospholipids, which are linked to lowering inflammation and helping protect against heart disease. The yolks in particular are rich in choline, a nutrient that supports brain and heart health.

In Conclusion

Eating raw eggs definitely comes with risks, and the fact remains that you can get nearly all of the same health benefits in cooked eggs. So if you need those raw eggs for something, make sure they’re pasteurized. Or just save yourself some peace of mind and make this vegan cookie dough instead.

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Farming

Best Ways to Avoid Mortality in Brooding

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The top performance indicators to validate an excellent result in brooding are

  1. Uniform growth of birds
  2. Not more than 2% mortality

If you are having challenges in any of these, then you need to check out these ten main tips which can help you avoid unnecessary chicks mortality during brooding.

  1. Antibiotic Injection at Day Old

Early chick mortalities are caused mainly by E. coli and staphylococcal infections . To prevent this, give your chicks Gentamicin injection at Day Old.

  1. Temperature Control

 Temperature control is very important for chicks, especially during the first 3 weeks of life. However, heat may or may not be required depending on the environmental temperature. If it’s too cool, you have to continue providing heat. Below are some negative effects of high and low brooding temperatures.

Effects of High Brooding Temperature: a. Dehydration:The chick’s body is about 70% water. When brooding temperature is high, there is loss of water from the chicks’ body. When about 10% of water is lost, the chick will die from dehydration.

  1. Vent Pasting: When temperature is high, feaces will continue to stack around the vent until the vent is blocked. If this is not attended to, the affected chick will die.

Effects of Low Brooding Temperature: a. Chilling: This is also called brooding pneumonia. When chicks are chilled, their lungs will turn blue and they’ll die. It can also lead to failure of the digestive system.

  1. Smothering: When temperature is low, chicks will huddle together for warmth. They may pack themselves so tight that some will die as a result.

Also Read Common ways to manage bacteria diseases in poultry

Preventing Temperature Problems:

To prevent all these problems discussed above, you need to have a very reliable source of heat, which might be infrared heat lamps, propane gas brooders, bulbs, etc. Also follow the recommended temperature plan for chicks, like the one shown in the table below. However, you should adjust these recommended temperatures according to chicks’ behavior. If the temperature is ok, they’ll be evenly spaced around the pen and will make soft cheeping sound. Cold chicks will huddle together and cheap loudly. If it is too hot, they’ll move away from the heat source and they may pant and/or lay down with wings stretched out. If there is draft they’ll stay away from its path. Monitor all these and correct the temperature accordingly

Another important thing to note is the litter temperature. If the litter is not warm enough, the birds will loose heat when they lie on it. To avoid this, you have to put on your heat source 24 hours before the chicks arrive. This way, the litter will be warm enough when they arrive and you’ll be able to measure and see how high or low the temperature swings during the day and at night. Also remember to measure the temperature of areas furthest away from the heat source. This will enable you to know how to make adjustments so that birds in these locations will not get chilled.

  1. Feed & Water Quality

Fungal and other toxic contaminants in feed can also cause mortality in chicks. If there is excess salt in the drinking water, death can result from that.

Prevention: Monitor your feed and water quality. Buy feed from reputable companies and send a water sample for test – chemical and biological test. If you mix your own feed, use feed ingredients that are free from toxins. Also incorporate toxin binders in the feed. Always ensure that feed and clean water are constantly available. Starving the chicks any of these will result in mortality. Chicks don’t have fat storage and so can’t cope with hunger. There should be enough feeders and waterers for the number of chicks you have. Linear feeding space for the first 2 week should be about 1 inch per chick, then 2 inch/chick after 2 weeks. Provide two 2-gallon waterers for 100 chicks from 0-4 weeks old and two 5-gallon waterers from 4-12 weeks old.

  1. Air Quality

Toxic gases like ammonia, carbon monoxide (CO), high concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) etc. can lead to mortality.

Ammonia gas is produced as chicks’ droppings decompose. It will build up in brooders with wet litter and poor ventilation and lead to respiratory infections. Its maximum concentration should be less than 25 ppm. CO is a very lethal gas to both humans and animals. It is produced during low oxygen combustion. CO is particularly important to those that use charcoal fire in brooding. Both CO and CO2 can lead to death by suffocation.

Prevention: Good air quality can be ensured by proper ventilation. Some people think that because chicks need warmth, they have to seal up the brooding house. This is wrong because if toxic gases from the litter and heaters can’t escape, they’ll cause problem for the chicks. So, every brooding house need small openings at the top to ensure that fresh air continually comes in and bad air out. This will prevent draft and ensures good ventilation. Draft occurs when air flow comes in direct contact with the chicks while with ventilation, the air flow does not come in direct contact with the birds. Draft can chill and kill chicks. Draft during cold periods can kill adult birds.

To prevent ammonia build up, ensure that the litter remains dry. The litter should be about 3cm thick. Stir it from time to time to keep it dry. Remove any wet spot and caked litters and replace with dry ones.

  1. Routine multivitamins

It is good to give chicks and even adult chickens vitamin supplements routinely. Give it to them whenever they are stressed with temperature swings, transportation, breeding, illness, vaccination etc. This will boost their immune system and help them to cope better with the stress. However, giving multivitamins for a long time at a stretch is not a good practice because of the dangers of vitamin toxicity. Follow the instruction on the multivit’s sachet while giving it to them. If the instruction says give for 3 days at a certain dosage, abide by it.

Where to Buy Multivitamins: You can get a wide range of cheap poultry vitamins from your local market.

  1. Routine Probiotics

Probiotics are the opposite of antibiotics. While antibiotics kill bacteria – both good and bad bacteria – probiotics add and encourage the growth of good bacteria in the gut. Probiotics can also be given during an antibiotic treatment to help replace the good bacteria killed by the antibiotic.

Where to Buy Probiotics:You can get a wide range of cheap probiotics from any reputed company.

  1. Proper vaccination

Birds need vaccination against many diseases, including incurable viral diseases like Newcastle, Marek’s disease, Gumboro, infectious bronchitis etc. Most often, viral diseases are accompanied by bacteria diseases. This is why antibiotics can be given to birds suffering from viral diseases. In such situations, the antibiotics are not meant to treat the viral infection, but to treat the bacterial diseases and help reduce the severity of the disease. Viral diseases can only be prevented through vaccination. Some vaccination like that against Marek’s disease is given at day old in the hatchery. Make sure you buy chicks that have been vaccinated against Marek’s disease at the hatchery.

Read also: Vaccine Failure in Poultry 

  1. Lighting

After 7 days, all birds require a period of darkness so as to avoid m etabolic diseases (esp. of the heart) and leg problems.

Initially, the birds may be exposed to 23-22 hours of light for the first 3-5 days to enable them find their feed, water and warmth. However, the chicks should be given blackout training from a day old to avoid death.

Blackout Training:Chicks should be given blackout training from day old in order to accustom them to sudden darkness. It involves turning the light off for about 5 to 60 minutes daily. Without this, the chicks will likely die in pile-ups on the litter if a blackout occurs.

  1. Overcrowding

When chicks are overcrowded, disease organisms can easily build up and spread fast, leading to deaths. Overcrowding can also lead to mass death when they pile up and die from suffocation. This usually happens when they’re frightened.

Space required per bird depends on the climate (temperate/tropics), type of housing (deep litter, cage, slatted floor) and age of the bird. Chicks should be given at least 0.05m2/bird (0.5ft2/bird) during the first 3 weeks. Increase to 1ft2/chick from 4-8 weeks. A brooder ring with a diameter of 6 feet will cater for 50 chicks.

  1. Smothering in Corners

When you remove the brooder ring, chicks are in danger of piling up at any of the 4 corners of the pen when frightened. A lot of chicks can die that way.

To prevent this, block the corners of the house with cardboards or wire mesh.

Conclusion

Having said all these, it is important to let you know that it is normal for some chicks to die. During the first 3 weeks, it will be normal if 2% of your chicks die. In turkey poults, it is 3%. If mortality is greater than this, you may have to worry and find out why. After 3 weeks, normal mortality rate should not exceed 1% per month; however, you should expect something higher when the birds start laying eggs (for layers).

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